Punjab Health & Family Welfare Minister Mr. Balbir Singh Sidhu on Friday inaugurated the COVID Fast Testing Machine (ID Now) at District Hospital SAS Nagar. This machine has donated by PATH, a US-based non-profit organization.Giving information about this, Mr. Sidhu said that ‘ID Now’ machine will be beneficial for providing confirmatory results as it provides results within six to thirteen minutes with the capacity to conduct 30 tests a day. He said that this will be benefited for testing emergency and IPD samples. This is a major boon at a time when there is high demand for testing of critical patients.Health Minister said that this machine is portable and a first of its kind RTPCR based which can easily be taken to villages for testing. This testing machine will also be very helpful to conduct tests in micro containment zones.Cabinet Minister appreciated PATH’s initiative in donating this technology as part of their support to the state of Punjab under the project “Improving Access to COVID-19 Testing in India.Lauding the commendable efforts being made by the healthcare workers on the occasion, Mr. Sidhu said that medical and para-medical staff has been working endlessly in providing essential COVID-19 medical services since the last year. He also motivated them to keep up the good work with passion to save the precious lives of COVID patients.Notably, A unique point-of-care testing system called Abbott ID Now is installed at District Hospital, Mohali,. This technology is aimed at reducing the time taken to receive test results.Civil Surgeon, Mohali Dr Adarshpal Kaur, State Nodal Officer, Covid-19 Dr. Rajesh Bhaskar, SMO Dr HS Cheem, Dr and PATH Punjab team: State Lead Ms Preetishirin Katapur, Program Officer Dr. Surbhi and Field Officer Mr. Gurpreet Singh were also present on the occasion.